Laura's Exposition Diary: Sometimes a Great Notion
by midwifeonboard
Summary: Laura struggles with her fight. Originally published in 2009.


Exposition Diary: Sometimes a Great Notion

When I was six years old, we went for a family picnic. I remember my aunts and my mother clinging to one another, and the older children not wanting to play. We set out blankets and food in a large green field littered with daisies. I hung back, clinging to my father's hand, not understanding why on this beautiful, sunny day, in this big, lush field, no one wanted to play. Everyone wanted to play with me: I was _fun._ Instead, my cousins sat on a blanket with my older sister and brother and popped open cans of soda. They ate their sandwiches without talking much. The men decided to go for a walk to give the sisters their 'alone time.' This was not something I could understand then. Why would anyone ever want 'alone time?' My dad gave me a little pat on the rear admonishing me to go and play.

I was torn. There was sadness all around me that I didn't understand, and I wanted to be held by my mother. But she was, herself, being held by my aunt; there was no room for me. I decided that I was a princess and this daisy-strewn field was my kingdom. I set out to explore my realm, plucking daisies as I went. If I was the princess, it stood to reason that my mother was the queen and was due some homage. My sisters had shown me how to make daisy crowns only weeks before and I plopped down in the field with my bounty to create a royal garland for my mother. Surely this would ease her sorrow.

I had so many daisies that the crown was far too large for me, but nothing could be too large or too grand for the woman who kissed my skinned knee when I fell out of the tree, and packed my favorite cookies in my lunch sack every Marsday. I was so young, and it must have taken my small hands hours to create the daisy chain. I carried it back to my mother and presented it to her with great pride. "Thank you princess," she replied as she took the chain and looped it around her neck. I had not created a crown, but a beautiful necklace. I remember hugging her, burying my face into her soft tummy and telling her not to be sad because I loved her, and looking up into her beautiful face, which held a watery smile. "I know, darling," she told me. "I love my little princess so much. Now go get a cookie from your daddy before they are all gone."

That was all the encouragement I needed. I loved cookies, but then, what six-year-old doesn't? As I walked away I heard her tell my aunt how beautiful daisies were, but that they choked the life from any plant that grew near them. My little child's heart stopped beating for a moment, wondering if I was choking the life from my mother with my daisy chain. I stopped and turned to look at her standing there, fingering the daisies. My aunt murmured something I couldn't hear, and my mother smiled. Temporarily reassured, I went in search of my cookie.

When the picnic was packed up, my dad and uncles started unloading giant logs from my Uncle Chuck's big grey truck. A bonfire! I was so excited. We had a bonfire every Colonial Day and I loved watching the flames as they jumped for the heavens, yet always disappeared before reaching their goal. It was getting chilly when my big sister pulled a sweater over my head as dad lit the pyre. He then walked over to our car and brought out a large box, setting it down in front of my mother and her sisters. They each took an item and threw it onto the fire. First, my mother took out a long coil of plastic tubing and tossed it with a great fury. Then my Aunt Meg took out a pile of blue gowns and threw them in. Finally, Aunt Jane took a wig, and stared at it a moment, before it too joined the other items in the flames.

The stench of the immolation of synthetic materials made my eyes burn and I started to cry. This was not the happy bonfire I remembered from last month's Colonial Day. This fire made me hurt and I wanted to go home. My father scooped me up in his big strong arms and carried me away telling me that mom and my aunties needed to say goodbye to my grandmother before the service at the temple the next morning. He reached down and plucked a single daisy as we walked away and tucked it behind my ear. I was sleepy and he placed me in the car, tucking a warm, wooly blanket around me. "I'll be back soon and we'll go home, princess," were his parting words as he went to see to the finish of the bonfire. I pulled the daisy from my ear and held it to my nose, inhaling deeply. I remember that it didn't smell like other flowers. There was no heady aroma, just an earthy, green scent. One that calmed me right into a dreamy slumber.

The new growth on Earth, the tiny buds of plants freshly sprung to life after two thousand years of barrenness, brought me both clarity and grief. The scent, so reminiscent of the tiny daisies of my youth, yet so utterly different, brought to mind the meaning of that long-ago bonfire; a meaning that I never understood until I did the same for my own mother. The things that we desperately cling to for hope need to be destroyed for life, real life, to make its way.

Deciding to cease the same Diloxin treatments that tortured my grandmother, my mother, and now me, may have been foolhardy. I am scared. I am breaking my word to Bill, but I am so tired of being sick and tired. I have been so wrong about so much. Who am I to cheat that which had claimed the lives of the two previous generations of Roslin women? My cancer has nothing to do with prophesies. I am no savior. I am simply unlucky like my mother and grandmother before me.

Sometimes a great notion should be diregarded. Chamalla and words of prophesy had deceived me. Destroying the book in my own private bonfire was the only way I knew how to put Pythia to rest and take the next step. I don't know what that step is, or if I am even capable of taking it. As I lay there with the embers of my precious book at my feet, I _did_ want to give up. Too many people have lost their lives because of their belief in me. I am frozen like my mother and aunts were that day, yet without the hope of the future, or the joy of my own children to pick me up. I am terrified of what is there, of what is left. What if the touch of the man I love breaks me?


End file.
